The Last Of
by Hikaru Irving
Summary: Oneshot, crossover with ToV, endgame spoilers. Tear's cousin, another survivor of Hod, had always been a strange individual to her. The last of Hod's survivors had to fight one of their own, the last haunting apparition from the sunken isle.


A/N: Because to me, Raven is totally Van and Zelos put together.

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Namco Bandai, or make a material profit from this work. It is purely fan made fun.

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To Tear, her cousin Raven was a strange individual. The only other survivor of Hod besides her mother, herself, Van, and Guy, Raven was a distant relative, only second or third cousin. The lineage wasn't exactly clear as Hod's records had been destroyed along with it, and the archer had been orphaned. After Hod's fall, he had only one choice, one path to devote his life to, as Van had--to join the Order of Lorelei, to advocate and uphold the Score that uprooted their lives. Despite not being immediate family, Raven and Van were fairly close, and the former had followed the latter's footsteps into the Oracle Knights.

In the Knights, both of them were confused with one another, as they looked alike--the same turquoise eyes, tanned skin, their Oracle uniforms very much the same, and they wore their hair in the same style, though Raven's was darker. When Van's raw ambition saw him rising to the rank of Commandant at a young age, Tear remembered her cousin as being uneasy. Never before with such a passion had Van pursued anything.

Raven wasn't interested in gaining high rank in the Oracle Knights--Van's subordinate he was, but not a God-General, only a Locrian Colonel. When Legretta had been sent to Yulia City to begin Tear's training as an Oracle Knight, Raven had begun visiting Tear in that city more and more often, as if he were worried about something.

"Do you remember ... Yulia's hymns?" Raven would ask. "Van used to sing them to you as a lullaby, you know."

Tear remembered only so many of the total seven, and she did not understand the symbolism of the ones she did know. She had the feeling that Raven knew something about the hymns she did not, but he never told her anything about them. Perhaps he wanted her to figure them out herself, or perhaps he had hung on to some shred of loyalty to Van.

It wasn't just her imagination. As Tear progressed in her journey, crusading against Van and his plan for a replica world, Raven would pop into her business every now and then, sometimes as the Oracle Knight in league with Van, sometimes as himself. And every time he did, he would ask her about Yulia's hymns. When she could finally answer that she made some progress on unraveling the mysteries of the seven hymns, he would seem pleased, maybe even relieved.

On Eldrant, before Yulia's magnificent tombstone, Tear had found Raven. The hauntingly familiar melody filling the spacious chamber filled with carpets of flowers had been Raven's own voice. Raven, singing Yulia's hymns.

" ... Raven?" Tear asked, the rest of the group falling back in the doorway as she stepped over the threshold, toward her older cousin. The singing abruptly stopped, and he turned to see her approach him before the shining majesty of Yulia's final resting place.

"Hey, it's lil' sis." Raven said. He often called her "lil' sis" though first it had been jokingly since the Oracle Knights kept mistaking him for Van. He gave a small laugh. "So, you heard me, huh? A raspy old voice like mine don't do Yulia's hymns justice."

"That's not true," Tear said. "You sing them beautifully, like Van does." Quite suddenly, it struck her. "You ... know all seven hymns, don't you?"

Raven's shoulders slumped. "Yeah ... I wanted to tell you what the Grand Fonic Hymn was, and what it meant ... I didn't think I could face Van down myself, if it came to that."

"You mean freeing Lorelei with the Grand Hymn?"

"That's just a bonus." Raven said flatly. "I don't have the heart to go up against my little cousin. I thought I could, but just so his lil' sis don't have to."

Out of the shadows of the doorway, Luke came forth, backed up by the rest of the group.

"You don't have to do it alone, and neither does Tear." Luke said firmly. "A lot of us don't want to fight Master Van. He's Tear's brother, your cousin, Guy's childhood friend, Anise's Commandant ... If you can't fight him directly, you can reinforce Tear's Grand Hymn with your own. That'll make freeing Lorelei easier."

For a fleeting moment of silence Raven stood, looking first at Tear, then Guy, Luke, Anise, and the rest of the group. He wouldn't have to fight Van alone, not this time. And two melodists singing the Grand Fonic Hymn in a bid to call out Lorelei was better than just the one. He suppressed a laugh--the other survivors of Hod going up to fight one of their own ... the Hod War had finally caught up with them, they were going to destroy one another.

Raven knelt before Yulia's grave, murmuring a quick prayer for forgiveness as he took the shining staff of Sixth Fonons from its place before the tombstone. Standing up, he turned, and handed it to Tear. Her eyes were wide as she took the Unicorn Horn, the staff Yulia herself had used in life.

"It'll be hard for all of us." Raven said, his eyes lingering on Luke when he spoke. "But Van is the one who can't put his past behind him, who can't move forward. It'll be painful, but freeing Lorelei ... will separate us from our past once and for all."

Raven couldn't help but grin as he noticed--Guy with the Jewel of Gardios, Tear with Yulia's Unicorn Horn, and himself with the Divine Cannon longbow. How ironic, using weaponry of past sentiment to cut the living embodiment of their past from their present, to move toward the future.

That cheeky grin whose purpose was known only to himself, Raven went with Tear and the others as they left Yulia's grave.


End file.
